Photo: Jonathon D. Coleman (Flickr)
Congress should vote on the plan this evening.
An Indiana fiscal analyst says Hoosiers can feel a sense of relief as Congress nears a deal on raising the debt ceiling.
Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute President John Ketzenberger says there was some danger that programs administered by the state, but paid for mostly by the federal government – like Medicaid – would be hurt by the government failing to raise the debt ceiling. With a deal now in the works, Ketzenberger says fears about those benefits can be laid to rest.
“People who receive them won’t have to worry about getting them,” he said, “and the state won’t have to worry about trying to make up the difference had the federal government defaulted, so certainty is what people get with the deal.”
But Ketzenberger says the deal is only a short-term solution:
“I think Congress has to take the time that it bought today, or is buying today,” he said, “to try to craft a real long-term solution to the deficit.”
Ketzenberger says that has to include finding new revenue sources, which could include closing tax loopholes.
